Group items tagged

This Pinterest page is more of a menu of materials associated with Personal Learning Networks.  Numerous links to PLN resources are provided.

Pinterest is awesome, except for the fact that it is a total time sucker. At least I get some good ideas for my classroom and recipes for dinner from it. I also posted this link because it had quite a few websites that talked about PLN's. I'm new to PLN's but I am certainly learning a lot more about them this week.

I wondered if anyone would find something on Pinterest. One of the articles that I read mentions the idea of framing, or putting a personal interpretation on someone else's material. Pinterest is a classic example of this. Without framing, though, I don't think we would all see the value in what others pin.

This article explains why communities of practice are so important for the business realm. In one statement it explained that companies have now figured out that "knowledge = power, so share and it multiplies". This idea is synonymous with connectivism and the idea that in order to gain more knowledge more connections must be made through sharing, collaborating, creating, etc. This article also made the distinction between tacit knowledge that is rooted in people's life experiences with explicit knowledge that is deliberately shared outside of people. This distinction also helped me to really see the reason why connectivism, PLNs and CoPs work so well together. You have a group of people, connected by common interests and goals, that are expanding upon their knowledge by sharing their own collective experiences and goals in effort to connect with others that can share insight, collaborate with and add to their ideas, solutions and questions.

Allee uses the term organizational intelligence to describe how CoPs are becoming more prevalent in the modern workforce. He talks about how he has consulted with various multinational companies to help them create CoPs and to get employees at various levels to share their expertise.

The "community of practice" is defined and there are examples. The characteristics are the domain, the community, and the practice. There are examples given and explanation of where the concept came from and where it is being applied.

Great article on Community of Practice. It is defined and there are examples listed. Its very basic.

Wegner describes three important criteria for a community of practice, the domain, the community, and the practice. When the three criteria are combined, it creates the basis of a community of practice where interaction takes place and participants gain knowledge on a topic/topics.

A mostly visual representation to explore connectivism as it occurs through an open learning system. Points brought up include learners making meaningful choices while exploring their personal interest in order to guide learning. And as participants engage in making connections, a natural result will be content development and eventually those more experienced students becoming mentors.

Great video that has a section about how our students are "different" than when we were in school. "They [Students] expect to learn from technology because that is what they are used to." As soon as ALL teachers realize and accept this fact, then we as teachers can be one step closer to helping our students achieve their FULL potential!

I like the idea of learners making meaningful choices. Anything that can guide students to make effective and relevant connections is a great resource. I also think teachers have a lot to learn about the way our students learn these days. The idea that students actually need to be a force in their own learning and that they expect instant gratification are concepts I have been seeing more frequently in my own classroom. Great resource!

This journal article positions Connectivism as a natural successor to the progress of learning theory from Behaviorism to Constructivism. It also discusses the controversy this theory has faced when being described as a full-fledged learning theory.

Connectivism is presented and discussed as a learning theory and phenomenon in an e-learning environment. George Siemen's eight principles of connectivism are outlined to support the theory definition. The author identifies inconsistencies with defining connectivism as a theory and proposes five scenarios to further explore learning theories applicable to digital learning.

This article describes how the connectivism of social and technological networks has changed the role of the teacher. The author maintains that the connectedness students have with information at any given time or place means the teacher does not need to serve the role of the only expert in the students' lives. Several roles that the author believes teachers should play in such connected learning situations are described.

This blog post focuses on the role of the teacher in a connectivist driven teaching paradigm. The author suggests that the role of the teacher must shift from "controlling" learning to "influencing" learning. He suggests seven roles teachers must play in networked learning environments: amplifying, curating, wayfinding and socially-driven sensemaking, aggregating, filtering, modelling, and persistent presence.

I really like that it defines the role of the instructor. It is moving away from some of the earlier educational theories were the instructor was simply a subject matter expert. As an instructor we are moving more to not just telling but showing the information and where to get the information to enhance the learning.

In the modern, digital age, technology integration has become the synergy of several classical learning theories (behaviorism, cognitivism, etc.)

This article very clearly defines what connectivism is.  It goes over George Siemens theory in detail and how it applies as well as how it is different from other learning theories.  It has some real-world examples.

This was a great article. I like the way he stated that others thought it was plagiarism because it was so similar to other theories. This is what I have found as I have searched for "Connectivism" and have come to the same conclusions. Most of the articles are very similar. This article discussion Connectivism and how it is an integration of principles, networks instead of hierarchy, dialogue instead of blogs, and collaboration instead of wikis. I love the last statement: "...imagine what we could come up with together, connected." Thank you!

Wisconsin Public Service has a collection of S.T.E.M websites that have potential for classroom use.

Online typing game that helps teach kids keyboarding skills. There is also a full downloadable version that has more features, levels, and enhanced graphics. Grab it at http://www.shockwave.com/services/download.jsp?keyword=typershark&promoCode=SiteShockwaveLandingPage

Our state's dairy and nutrition council has a website with great resources in foods and nutrition.

The MyPlate.gov website has mproved its site, creating "Supertracker", now available in beta. It combines the features of the former tracker and foodapaedia from the previous versions.

Upload images or draw onto bread, then toast! Educational link (from menu) has interesting facts about bread; donations made to Share Our strength for each piece of art created.

This article has some up-to-date resources on ways to teach Internet safety, including games and more!

Blog created by Dr. Matthew J. Koehler who is a professor of Educational Psychology and Educational Technology at Michigan State University. It has a ton of resources dealing with TPCK or Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge.

The digital age has created a new way of learning called connectivism. Principles such as chaos and network have an effect on how we learn. This article gives a brief overview of more popular learning theories and connectivism. The digital era affects how take in knowledge and disperse that knowledge through connections we make in life.

This is a blog of an expert in Personal Learning Networks. He talks about how his own PLN has developed and changed over his professional career due to the availabilty to make connections with others in far more ways than were possible 20 years ago. He briefly describes many of the connection possibilities on the internet such as social networks, blogs, wikis, etc.

I like the discussion in this article about critical behaviors. I have found that it is challenging at first to follow through on those behaviors. Assignments in our edtech courses help us engage in such behaviors, but the question for me is whether or not I'll keep those habits intact after the courses end. Thanks for the link.

This is a website that I have been working on throughout the summer. When I started in July, the content was severely outdated (up to three years out of date) and few people in our council were actually visiting the site. Along with this ever ongoing process of maintaining content, there will be more changes coming to the CSS and the appearance of the site in the future. The principal webmaster, who still manages the domain for us, set it up using Joomla. I had never used this platform previously, so there has been a learning curve associated with the process of updating this site. I posted this URL because I visit the site daily, not necessarily because it will be of much value to my classmates.